Task Force: VALKYRIE
Fact: In December 1927, the US Army raided a number of coastal towns in Massachusetts. The towns no longer exist. Their inhabitants vanished. Fact: In 1947, an unidentified object crashed near a USAF base in Roswell, New Mexico. Government agents waded in to clear things up. Fact: In November 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The US Government's investigation seemed reluctant. Fact: In the 1960s and 1970s, the Zodiac killer stalked northern California. No one ever caught him. Still, the killings ended. Fact: In August 1997, Princess Diana's car crashed under mysterious circumstances, killing Diana, its driver, and the industrialist she was dating at the time. Was the People's Princess really the intended victim? You could go back further. Who shot Abraham Lincoln? Conspiracy theorists would have you believe there is a great agency behind all of these events. They don't know for sure, of course. Task Force: VALKYRIE knows. They know the truth about Diana and the precise location of the Roswell pilot's grave. They know who didn't shoot Kennedy. And they know about vampires, werewolves, demons and ghosts. It began in 1865, when a hastily organized unit of government men (led by a man named Gordon West) failed to rescue Abraham Lincoln from the clutches of a creature from outside any human frame of reference. Realizing that for the good of the Union, they had to cover up the President's death, they enlisted a look-alike, and without the hapless man's knowledge, hired John Wilkes Booth to follow him to the theater and do the deed before anyone noticed the difference. Ever since then, they've been protecting the US against supernatural agencies and hiding the evidence. They've always operated outside the usual structures of the US government. They were reformed as Task Force: VALKYRIE in 1944 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, without the President's knowledge, when it became apparent that some prominent Nazis had been driven to allying themselves with paranormal entities. Between June 1944 and April 1945, TFV joined US and British forces in the invasion of Europe. Armed with little more than their wits, their fists and their guns, the newly minted task force defeated and captured a cadre of bizarre hermaphrodite Nazi magicians, two packs of man-eating werewolves, dozens of walking dead men of various kinds and more vampires than they suspected could have existed. Half the time, these "extra-normal entities" (ENEs), weren't fighting for anyone but themselves, but it didn't matter. They were a threat, and the men of TFV were far too interested in such things to let them go just because they weren't fighting the allies. Things kicked off then. After the Roswell incident (an early triumph for VALKYRIE's disinformation policy), TFV managed, effectively, to disappear. Its mission is to protect the USA from extra-normal forces. A handful of people at the top level of government know it exists. The President isn't one of them. Every story of sinister Men in Black who cover up paranormal events, every account of black-clad, heavily armed Special Forces operatives who descend from black helicopters and make people vanish, every supernatural or UFO conspiracy theory comes right back to TFV. It really is the conspiracy that keeps the people blissful in ignorance. Purpose: ''To cover up evidence of the supernatural; to observe, assess, and potentially neutralize supernatural threats. ''Doctrine: ''Keep the existence of the agency absolutely secret. Do not allow the public to obtain knowledge of the agency's existence. Protect the United States of America from extra-normal threats. Report, observe, assess, report again, neutralize or call for backup. ''Membership: ''Drawn almost exclusively from members of the various divisions of U.S. Special Forces, Task Force: VALKYRIE is composed of three major Departments: Operation ADAMSKI, tasked with spreading misinformation regarding the supernatural, Operation FORT, which investigates the more esoteric side of the paranormal, and Project TWILIGHT, which concerns itself with investigating the more "social" monsters of the night. All, however, are trained soldiers, capable of operating in a squad and maintaining discipline and secrecy at all costs. '''Mortal Only.' Benefits • Operatives new to Task Force: VALKYRIE are taught the complicated jargon, security codes and tactical language of the agency almost as soon as they sign the non-disclosure form. The codes, jargon, and even grammar and syntax of the language are constantly updated by High Command, ensuring a degree of secrecy on operations. Gain a dot of the Merit Language (Asgard TCL). •• Valkyries that have survived their first deployment with their bodies and minds intact quickly find that any moment of hesitation could result in a hideous death. The Valkyrie gains a dot of Fast Reflexes, added on top of any dots of Fast Reflexes the character might already possess. ••• At this rank, a Valkyrie is permitted to lead a squad, and learns the knack for coordinating and leading small-unit combat actions from training and previous experience under ranking squad leaders . The Valkyrie gains the Merit Small Unit Tactics. •••• A Valkyrie that has survived this long has long since realized that the one thing they fail to notice is the one thing that can wipe out their entire squad in seconds flat. Every missed detail in missions past is now painfully associated with fallen comrades. The Valkyrie gains the Trained Observer merit at three dots. ••••• A Valkyrie at the pinnacle of their training and experience in the agency is a beacon of hope for those less experienced than them, and their squad comes to rely on their words of wisdom and tactical mastery. The Valkyrie gains the Merit Inspiring. Source ''Hunter: the Vigil: ''pp.